By David Winship, Contributing Writer
“Flash Po!nt: The Civil Rights Photography of Danny Lyon,” exploring a pivotal movement in
American art and history, is now on exhibit at Reynolda House. The exhibit is a visual story of
the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), one of the most consequential student organizations in history, during the early 1960s.
- If you remember 1963, then this exhibit is for you.
- If you’ve heard of SNCC and have wondered who and what it was, then this exhibit is for
you. - If you would like to see more photographs from the photographer who took the iconic
photograph showing the integrating of the Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter, then
this exhibit is for you.
Danny Lyon’s dramatic photography documented the struggles against systemic racism in the
Jim Crow South, allowing a comprehensive view of some of the action of the Civil Rights
Movement. The exhibit also includes a video presentation that Lyon created documenting the
struggle for civil and voting rights through interviews with former colleagues from SNCC,
including John Lewis and Julian Bond. The film incorporated hundreds of unpublished still
photographs and recordings made inside the churches.
In addition to the pictorial display of SNCC, “Chimes of Freedom” presents the mutual journeys
of folk singers Harry Belafonte and Bob Dylan. Belafonte, along with his singing career, was a
major supporter of SNCC. Dylan authored and sung one of the primary songs of the Civil Rights Movement, “Blowing in the Wind.” Portrayed by singers Joshua Brian Campbell and Joseph Terrell, the “Chimes of Freedom” will be presented in the Babcock Auditorium on Friday, Oct. 2, through Sunday, Oct. 4. Tickets are available at www.reynolda.org.
SNCC organized peaceful direct-action protests, leading lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides, and voter registration drives, for which they were frequently jailed, beaten, and some were murdered. Danny Lyon joined SNCC in 1962 as the official SNCC photographer.
Lyon represented a new breed of documentary photographer, for whom the camera was more
than an objective recorder; he was a witness to and implicated in the action, and potentially
endangered. In his commitment to the cause, Danny Lyon realized that “my camera could be a
sword for justice.”
A bronze statue from Hank Willis Thomas inspired by one of Lyon’s photographs, depicts the
arrest of Clifford Vaughs, with the arms of fellow demonstrators holding his legs and the officers holding his arm and back of his shirt, with Vaughs’ arm holding his body aloft. The statue is located just inside the exhibit space.
The exhibit accentuates the name of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, with
headlining banners of Study, Practice (of non-violence), Coordinate, and Commit.
“Flash Po!nt” will debut more than 50 gifts promised to Wake Forest University by James and
Wendy Agah, parents of a current student and a recent alumnus. The collection represents the
largest single gift of photographs in the University’s history.
David Winship is a retired public-school teacher who lives in Bristol, Tennessee. He is a member of Winston-Salem Writers and a contributor to The Source, with an interest in civil rights, African American history, and Black drivers in NASCAR.
Photo of statue by Hank Willis Thomas by David Winship. Bob Dylan photo by Danny Lyon from “Flash Po!nt” collection.